Tag: Forms

In fact, according to the Direct Marketing Association, email marketing brings in around $40 for every $1 you spend, making it one of the highest ROIs for any time of marketing out there.

It can be reasonably assumed that the whole point in capturing emails and having subscribers is to convert those emails into loyal customers who either buy your product or service or tell their friends to buy your product or service (or both).

Even if you’re just running a blog or a content site, those emails are everything. So what happens if all of a sudden you’re not getting as many subscribers as you once did?

Or worse yet, what happens when people that have already subscribed start to opt-out of receiving your emails?

Here are a few of the most common reasons people are opting-out of your email lists, plus what you can do to stop that from happening.

They’re Not In a List

The biggest problem when it comes to opt-ins is not having opt-ins (or opt-outs) because all of your emails go to all of your subscribers.

Not having any form of segmentation is a one-way ticket to unsubscribers, but if you’re running your email campaigns yourself, it can be tricky to manage all of those lists. That’s where third-party email marketing services can help.

Where to Send Your Form Submissions

If you’re using WordPress, you can use plugins like MailPoet or Newsletter to create real email system that allow you to create newsletters, automated emails, post notifications and more directly from WordPress while allowing you to segment your lists (to some degree, anyway).

If you really want to segment your lists, you can use a email service like MailChimp, Constant Contact, or AWeber (etc.) and integrate them with your CMS of choice using Zapier to create targeted emails to certain lists.

Whichever method you choose isn’t really as important as having some plan in place for your emails once they’ve been submitted on your site.
They’re In the Wrong List

Once you’ve warmed up to the idea of segmenting your lists, then comes the hard part. You have to figure out exactly which emails belong in which list.

The whole point of segmentation is to provide relevant content to the recipients, so if someone opted in to get your monthly newsletter but you send them promotional emails about events instead, your likelihood of unsubscribing is high.

So how do you segment your lists for better results?

How to Segment Your List

Welcome emails should, for example, go to your new subscribers or users. But you can also send a version of a welcome email – either a “we miss you” or “are you still there?” email – to those who haven’t been actively opening your emails.

Keeping track of those lists may be a little trickier, but if you’re using a third-party email marketing service like MailChimp (or similar), they often keep track of those lists for you.

But there are other ways to segment your lists that you may not have considered, including:

Demographics – Age, gender, company, position, etc.

Sending frequency – Some people want emails more frequently than others

Location – Knowing something as simple as a location can help you gauge send times and even personalize subject lines for better open-rates

Weather Patterns – Skymosity is a company that can track weather patterns and create automated email campaigns that are deployed by weather-based email triggers, which can be helpful for certain industries (fitness gear, outdoor living, etc.)

Email activity – Some people stop opening emails after a certain point, which can be helpful to know in order to send a “we miss you” email to reactivate their interest

There are many different ways to segment a list, but the most important part of that segmentation is not just getting them into a list, but also getting them the right content for that list to keep them engaged.
They’re Getting the Wrong Content

The average email user sends and receives around 105 emails per day, with 81% of those emails containing valid content (as in, not spam). This means that while sending out emails is a great way to capture your audience’s attention, it’s also ground zero for competition.

One of the biggest factors when it comes to people unsubscribing from your lists is that they’re simply being overwhelmed with content that doesn’t relate to them. Thankfully, there are a few easy ways to fix that by targeting your content more dynamically.

Types of Content to Send to Each List

Newsletters often go out to anyone in your email list, but some do a good job of separating their newsletter lists from their general email lists, so only the people who want the newsletter actually get it. But you can take this a step further by actually creating targeted newsletters based on niche topics and segmenting your list further.

One way to implement this strategy is to include separate opt-in messages in your welcome email, also known as an opt-in bribe.

Each link in your welcome email could lead to a different list so your subscribers are essentially telling you exactly what they want from your emails. Here are a few different types of content you can send to varying lists:

Welcome Email

Expectation Email

Tools and Resources Email

How-To Email

Getting to Know You Email

Unexpected Freebie Email

Exclusive Content Email

Basic Content Email

Archive Email

Curated Email

Newsletter

Buzz-Building Email

Testimonial Emails

Favorite Things Email

The truly important thing to remember is that the type of content you send out should reflect the list it’s being sent to. You wouldn’t send a welcome email to someone who’s been a subscriber for years.

Likewise, you shouldn’t send a newsletter to someone who just wants to know about events (unless your newsletter is all about your events).

Sometimes targeting certain content to different groups is a matter of trial and error, so it’s important to keep track of open-rates and watch your demographics (and other factors) closely to see what works and what doesn’t work.

Final Thoughts

When it comes to improving your conversion rates, there’s really no better tool than email marketing. But what you do with your content and your segmented lists makes all the difference between effective and ineffective marketing.

First, if you’re not segmenting your lists, get on it ASAP.

Second, once your lists are segmented, make sure that every email is where it’s suppose to be and every one who has opted in to your lists wants to be there.

Finally, make sure that the content you send to each list is relevant to the interests of those lists. If you’re not sure if it’s engaging enough, try targeting your email opt-in links in your welcome emails (or any email) to narrow down the field.

When it comes to conversions, most marketers hold to the age-old adage that “less is more.” But is that always true?

Well, yes and no. When it comes to forms in particular, simpler is usually better, but that doesn’t mean it’s the only option for engaging customers.

There are actually a couple ways you can approach creating forms to maximize conversions. The first way is considered the “simple” way, and it involves creating single-step forms with only a few questions and one “Submit” button. The other way is, of course, the “complicated” way, and involves creating multi-step forms that have several pages worth of questions and multiple “Next” and “Submit” buttons.

Initially, it may seem like the simple way is the clear winner when it comes to boosting conversion rates. After all, the less work a customer has to do to get what they want, the better, right? Well, not necessarily.

So which choice is truly the best for conversions? Well, the answer depends on the goal of your form.

To simplify the process, we’re taking a look at both options to help you figure out which form type is best to get you the leads you want.

Let’s dig in…

Simple, Single-Step Forms

Single-step forms are the most common type of form. They can include basic contact forms, subscription forms, and any form that gathers general information. For the most part, single-step forms are a great choice for conversions, especially when all you need is basic information. There’s no need to inundate your users with pages of form fields if all you want them to do is sign up for an email newsletter. But are they always the best choice? Well, it depends.

Single-Step Forms Work When…

In his research on optimizing contact forms, Neil Patel found that having only three form fields was better than having more fields when it came to conversions. By simplifying his forms, he improved his conversion rates by 26%. Basically, when it comes to contact forms, shorter is sweeter.

The same is true for forms that deal with opt-ins and lead generation. When dealing with users who are new to a site (or who essentially aren’t yet invested in your business), the single-step forms outmatch the multi-step forms more often.

Single-step forms also tend to perform better for conversions when less information is needed or when enticing a customer to take a specific call-to-action.

Single-Step Forms Don’t Work When…

But single-step forms can actually backfire if you’re trying to gather too much information at one time. In fact, using more than 4 forms fields on a single-step form can send users running for the hills.

In one study, an 11-field version of a contact form was replaced with a 4-field version, which resulted in a 160% increase in the number of forms submitted and a 120% increase in overall conversions.

Not to mention that long forms can be extremely overwhelming to look at, even if they’re still considered single-step. In terms of conversions, single-step doesn’t work if the form is too long, like the example below.

What Are the Best Uses for Single-Step Forms?

Single-step forms are a great choice for simple information gathering. If the majority of your forms are focused on opt-ins, contact information, or lead generation, then simple is the way to go.

Simple forms are also great for getting creative with animations, like the example below.

Essentially, if you want to take advantage of single-step forms, remember to keep them short and sweet. Focus on the essentials and create a call-to-action that entices new customers without overwhelming them with information.

Complex, Multi-Step Forms

The general idea behind multiple-step forms is that the further the prospect goes down the sales funnel, the less likely they are to turn around when asked for valuable information. Essentially, they’re more likely to finish the whole form because they’re already committed. But does this idea hold up in the real world? Statistics point to yes.

Multi-Step Forms Work When…

One company compared user rates for single-forms versus multi-step forms and found that 14% more people finished the multi-step form than the single-step, including those who stopped filling out the form and returned to fill it out later. They found that people were more likely to finish longer forms when it required them to provide a lot of sensitive information.

Basically, people like filling out longer forms when they’re already invested in the process, like during checkout while shopping online.

Complex forms also work when you need to collect a lot of information, but you know that putting all of your form fields on one page will be overwhelming. By creating a multi-step process, the chances are higher that people will fill it out.

Multi-Step Forms Don’t Work When…

However, complex forms don’t work quite as well when you’re trying to generate brand new leads, or get people to subscribe to basic functions on your site like a newsletter or email list.

They also don’t work well if you don’t have the form’s progress clearly listed somewhere. It’s important to make sure that you provide the user with constant feedback on their progress to let them know how much more time they will require to finish the form.

What Are the Best Uses for Multi-Step Forms?

If you need a lot of information but don’t want to overwhelm your customers, multi-step forms are a great choice. If you’re curious about using multiple-step forms but still want the feel of a single-step form, you can also use what’s known as a single-field form. The single-field form includes multiple steps, but lets users fill it out one field at a time (like the example below).

When it comes to conversions, however, the best uses for multiple-step forms include checkout processes (for e-commerce stores), and forms that require information from current customers or those who are already invested in your business.

Which Should You Choose?

Does the information presented here feel conflicting? Well, the reality is that either form will help you boost conversions if used in the right context. Certain form types work better in certain situations.

If you run an e-commerce store, for example, and you’re running into a lot of abandoned carts or find that your customers stop short of filling out the billing information, your forms might be better suited to the multi-step process. The same is true if you need a lot of information from your users upfront, but don’t want to overwhelm them with a single-page form. (Just make sure to include the progress as visibly as possible.)

On the other hand, if your forms are used more for gathering basic contact information or getting subscribers for a service or special offer, then single-step forms are a much better option. They’re quick to fill out and easy to animate, making them the perfect choice for quick conversions that don’t require a lot of investment from your users. And generally speaking, the age-old adage still stands… less is more.

Does your company use forms? If so, you already know there are plenty of creative ways to use them, from gathering customer feedback to processing product orders and answering questions. But do you also know that your forms can do so much more than that? Your forms, when combined with other helpful productivity apps, can save you a ton of time and effort. How?

Two words: automated tasks.

When you set up a form, the last thing you want to do is track every entry, send a bunch of emails, and follow up with everyone who’s submitted a form on your site. That’s why it’s a necessity to set up automated processes for everything that happens after users hit “Submit.”

If you’re using a content management system like WordPress, you’re probably using plugins to manage your forms, which means you already have some level of automation in place. But there’s plenty more you can do with automation that can save you huge amounts of time (and that lets you do much cooler things).

So where’s the best place to start? With tools, of course.

Automation Tools

When it comes to automating tasks, Zapier is the granddaddy of all automation tools.

Zapier helps individual apps work together to create an automated workflow. You choose two apps to integrate, and when something happens in one app – someone fills out your form – something happens in the other app – you get a notification (or something much more creative, but we’ll get to that).

Once you’re setup in Zapier, which apps should you combine? Well, you should start with your form, obviously. After that, you’ll need to determine which app will help accomplish your goals. Let’s look at a few options.

Integrated Apps

Apps are a great way to get things done with minimal effort. They take heavy tasks like sending emails and creating databases off your shoulders so you can focus on other things. Here are some great examples of how apps can integrate with your forms to save time.

Send Marketing Emails

Chances are if you have a form, you’re probably collecting emails. But once a user gives you their information, where does it go? Do you collect all the form data together and store it away in some spreadsheet never to be seen again? If so, you’re missing a huge marketing opportunity.

By using a tool like Zapier, you can integrate your forms with apps like MailChimp or Intercom to send targeted emails to your users. It could be something as simple as a quick thank you email, or a follow up to a question or concern, or even a promotional email targeting a product or service they were interested in. Either way, sending out a quick, personalized message is the perfect way to keep customer attention and make sure your piles of gathered email addresses don’t waste away in a database somewhere.

Build and Save Databases

Of course, if you’re the type who still needs to collect form data in spreadsheets (and you actually plan on using it later), you can still automate the process to save you some time. Integrate your forms with apps like Google Sheets or Excel to capture bulk information quickly to save or use how you please.

This is especially helpful if you share your databases with other businesses or clients. You can connect your customer forms to any app needed, whether it’s setting up a card in Trello or sending form submissions to Go-To-Webinar. Either way, having your databases easily accessible is a great benefit.

Send Team Notifications

Your customers aren’t the only ones that need to receive notifications once a form is complete. You might also consider notifying your team so they can work to process any data that’s been submitted. That’s where SMS and other team notifications come into play. Use apps like SMS by Zapier, Slack, or Flowdock to send notifications to those who need it.

Of course, different notifications work best depending on your situation. Sometimes sending an SMS to every team member is the best choice, whereas a private chat message to a specific team member may be a better alternative. Whichever way you choose, you can use notifications to keep on top of your workload in real time.

Gather Leads for Social Content

Maybe you need your apps to do something a little more creative than standard notifications. How about setting up a workflow that turns your forms into social media posts? Apps like Buffer let you integrate forms (that you can design to gather specific pieces of information) that you can use for social updates.

This system also works to help manage content for your blog. If you use your forms to gather information like customer testimonials, you can easily create documents full of content that can be used to develop new posts later on. The Vadamalai Media Group did something similar by creating a vBulletin forum about agriculture where members could post products they wanted to buy or sell. Then, they made a Wufoo form that allowed visitors to fill out information about the items they want to buy or sell, gathered that information, and used it to create content.

Apps to consider: Lead generation or social apps such as Wufoo, Unbounce, vBulletin, Buffer, Yammer, etc.

Create Surveys

Surveys are a great way to find out what your customers are thinking, but sorting through the data can be a time-consuming job. If you use forms to gather customer feedback, why not integrate with other apps that automate all that information?

You can input your form surveys to a database or spreadsheet, then have those databases send feedback emails and even Twitter mentions to keep your customers feeling special.

Apps to consider: Any survey, database, or social app such as SurveyMonkey, Webflow, SurveyMethods, Twitter, Facebook pages, Google Sheets, etc.

Track Purchases and Orders

While most forms are about collecting basic information like names and emails, some forms are used for more serious business, like processing transactions and purchases. If you use your forms to take payments, then integrating with apps that make that process easy and secure is a must.

If you need mobile payments, you can use apps like Xero to process payments and track invoices. PayPal and Zoho Invoice will also do the job nicely, and most pair well with Zapier to connect seamlessly to your form software of choice.

Manage Schedules and Bookings

Do you use forms to manage your business calendar and schedule customers for appointments? If so, you might want to consider integrating your forms with your favorite calendar apps to save time.

Some businesses use forms to help customers manage bookings, like the Visit Sierra Leone team. They have an airport transfer and travel guide service, so they created a form for people to submit their arrival information.When someone fills out the form, Zapier connects with Google Calendar and sends a confirmation email to the customer and an SMS message to the airport.

Give Customer Support

If you have customers, you have customer inquiries. If some of the forms on your site are dedicated to taking customer questions and feedback, you’ll want to make sure that process is as smooth as possible. There’s nothing customers hate more than a delayed response when they need help.

That’s where Zapier and other integrated apps can help. Apps like Zendesk make it easy to answer customer questions from one location, and you can import your forms directly to the virtual helpdesk. Do you need to give real-time answers to your customers? Try using a text or chat app like LiveChat to reach customers faster.

Thousands of people use web forms every day. In fact, forms play such a key role in almost every online transaction – from newsletter sign-ups to surveys, checkout processes, event registration, quote requests, and even logins to social media sites – that you’d be hard-pressed to find a website that doesn’t include a form. Even typing a question into Google is considered filling out a form, and no matter where you go online, you’re bound to run across some little text field requiring your personal information. Don’t expect that to change anytime soon.

Top research company Gartner Tech predicts that the popularity of online forms will continue to increase as the years go on, stating that by 2020 online users “will manage 85% of [transactions] without ever talking to a human.”

With the popularity of online forms comes the increasing need to stand out in the crowd, however. The more that forms are used, the more users will expect something new and different to hold their attention. The best way to get your form to stand out from the thousands of other similar forms is to create a unique user experience (UX).

A good UX is one that makes forms fun, easy, and fast to use, while also including memorable features. With that in mind, here are a few creative ways you can design your forms with an interface that will never be forgotten.

Focus on visual elements

Most forms consist of a few basic elements: title, form fields, text input fields, and submit buttons. While these elements are standard (and necessary) for collecting information, they don’t necessarily make your form stand out from the crowd. The best way to get your form noticed is to make it as visually appealing as possible.

Creating animated transitions (also known as text input effects) is a great way to pump up the visual elements of your forms and make them both fun and functional. The best way to do this is using CSS transitions and pseudo-classes. The folks over at Codrops give a few inspirational ideas for adding animated transitions to your forms.

If you don’t want to go the animated route, you can always use additional visual cues to improve UX without all the fancy CSS. Using simple elements like lines, arrows, and photos (especially photos that use eyelines to lead the user’s gaze to where you want them to look) will help draw attention to your form. Other design focus points like contrast, complementary colors, and the use of blank space will help your form get noticed in all the right ways.

Think like a mobile phone

When it comes to being visually appealing (and super UX-friendly), mobile forms can’t be beat; they’re easier to use, cleaner in design, and faster than their online counterparts. In many ways the mobile form is preferable to fill out, but that doesn’t mean you should ignore your web form. In fact, you could use the same design features that make mobile forms so great to boost your web forms.

For example, try designing your web form to align vertically, like it would appear on a mobile screen (or eliminate the use of above-field labels all together and put your labels in the text fields). You don’t even need to design two forms: simply use the same number of form fields and headers you would put in your mobile form in your web form, too. The benefit of this is not only a seamless integration when it comes to branding, but it also improves your UX by making the transition from web to mobile a lot smoother.

Use single-fields for a unique UX

As Shakespeare says, “Brevity is the soul of wit.” This sentiment is also true when it comes to building forms: the simpler the better. While most contact forms are already fairly simple, you can’t get much simpler than the single-field form interface (also called the minimal form interface).

The concept is pretty straightforward: a form interface that only shows one text input field at a time, and reveals the next input field with a subtle transition. The idea is to eliminate clutter and distraction by using only elements that are helpful for the information needing to be filled in.

This form style is probably most useful for short forms, questionnaires, or contact forms, as they require much less work than longer, more complicated forms (like registration forms). Of course, simple-field forms have their disadvantages (you can’t go back and change your answers, for example), but the sheer simplicity makes it a great option as a creative alternative to the traditional form.

Try focusing attention with fullscreen

Similar to the single-field concept, the fullscreen form is another great, minimalistic option if you’re looking to experiment with your forms. Fullscreen forms aim to provide a completely distraction-free experience for users by making your form the focus of the whole page.

Fullscreen forms usually come with a few basic elements, including standard form fields, navigation dots (or numbers) that show form progress and steps, and a continue (or “next”) button that moves the form forward. The fullscreen really only displays one field (or grouping of similar fields) at a time, creating a focused experience where users can carefully review the information they’re inputting.

Fullscreen forms are especially beneficial when you require slightly more information from the user but don’t want to over-complicate your fields. The focused UX provides a visually appealing option that allows for more information while giving you all the simplicity of a single-field or traditional form.

Go “Mad Libs” with form function

Perhaps one of the more innovative ideas when it comes to forms, the natural language user interface (NLUI) – a “Mad Libs” style form generated from pre-selected sentences and dropdown menus – is a creative deviation from tradition.

These forms take a very human approach to submitting information. Instead of the standard label-plus-input-field, they use common phrases or fill-in-the-blank style language prompts to encourage specific user input. For example, if you were attempting to find out where you users liked to vacation, you would have them complete the sentence “I feel like travelling to…” instead of answering a question like “Where do you go on vacation?”

The personalized sentence feels more relatable – like talking to a friend or trusted colleague – and less like you’re answering questions at a mandatory deposition. The benefit to UX with natural language forms is that they humanize your brand while also letting users feel excited about providing their personal information.

In terms of numbers, NLUI forms have also been shown to increase conversions. In 2014, GoodUI.org tested natural language forms on one of their sites and found that signups had increased by up to 29% compared to their standard forms. While the “Mad Libs” style NLUI form is still relatively new, it’s nevertheless an extremely creative and potentially lucrative option when it comes to changing up your form type.

Final Thoughts

Good UX relies on quickness and ease of use while also providing creative elements that make the experience fun. By incorporating features that both simplify and beautify your form, you can hold user attention and get people to actually want to fill them in. Using CSS for animation, developing humanized questions with your text fields, or eliminating text fields all together and switching to a mobile-friendly design will help move your forms from ordinary to extraordinary.

Online forms are a digital marketing gateway. They’re the filter between the people who are merely interested in your content, product, or service, and the people who will become paying customers. But when it comes to your forms, do your potential customers actually want to fill them in?

Forms can either ease the transition between “merely interested” to “paying customer,” or they can frighten away potential business. Here are a few ways you can optimize your online forms so that users will actually want to fill them in.

Entice users with great content

You can spend hours designing beautiful forms for your website, but if potential customers don’t believe that the form will lead to something significant, they won’t bother filling them in.

After all, there’s no point in using forms to generate leads if those leads don’t turn into paid business.

Unless your content adds value, your form is essentially worthless.

The best way to ensure that users will fill in your forms is to give them something worthwhile on the other side. By optimizing your content, you can entice potential customers to click “submit.”

Offer valuable content

Whether you’re trying to acquire sales leads by gathering basic contact information, capture a customer’s feedback, or simply attempting to get more subscribers to your newsletter, you’ll need to grab their attention with your content first.

One of the best ways to garner form submissions is by having information on an optimized landing page alongside your form that includes details about what’s in it for the customer.

Including things like attention-grabbing headlines, bullet points that highlight benefits, content previews, and calls-to-action will create curiosity and make potential customers want to know more. You can also include text in your forms that mimics the language in the landing page, helping to create a natural flow between reading and submitting.

Another great way to gather submissions is to include a short call-to-action at the end of your content preview with a promise of more (and equally beneficial) content. This technique works especially well if your content or service is intriguing and fills a knowledge gap or need from the customer’s perspective.

It should be noted, however, that this only works if your content is meaningful to the customer. If what you have to offer isn’t worth the time it takes to submit the form, having forms may actually turn away further business. By ensuring that your content is genuinely beneficial, you can eliminate any hesitations and capture customer data.

Utilize your microcopy

Another important and often overlooked feature of any successful form is the language that’s used to guide people while they’re filling it in. Microcopy, or the small bits of text that instruct users or address concerns, plays a crucial role not only in getting users to fill in the form, but helping prevent errors that slow down the process.

Joshua Porter, co-founder of the product design Rocket Insights, blogged about his experience using microcopy to minimize errors on his forms (you can check out the whole article here). After receiving multiple error notifications on one of his forms, he realized that his microcopy wasn’t giving clear enough instructions.

“I remember the first time I realized how much even the smallest copy can matter in an interface,” Porter says. “It turns out that the transactions were failing because the address people were entering [on the forms] didn’t match the one on their credit card.”

Porter quickly changed the microcopy on his form to notify users to enter the address information associated with their credit card (instead of a general address) and the errors stopped. In light of this lesson, he encourages designers to add microcopy to all areas of their forms, including notifying customers that they can unsubscribe from a newsletter at any time, or that their email won’t be spammed when they sign up.

It can also help to add more natural language styles throughout your forms and in your call-to-action buttons that promote the benefits of your content. Using copy such as, “Sign me up for this free service” or “No, I don’t like free stuff” can humanize the process and guide users through the form by minimizing confusion. The less room there is for misinterpretation of complex jargon, the smoother the process will be.

Don’t miss: 5 Unique Forms that Make Users Want to Fill Them In

Make your forms easy to use

The best way to get users to want to fill in your forms is to make them as quick and easy to use as possible. Here are a few ways to make sure your form experience is painless:

Use a mobile-friendly design. Whether you hand-code your forms or use a design service like FormKeep, having your forms accessible on mobile phones and tablets will broaden the range of people able to use them at any given time. The more available your forms are to users, the more likely they will be filled in, especially if they are busy or travelling.

Enable autofill features. Enabling features like autofill can help shorten the time it takes to fill in your forms. Google Chrome offers its own autofill feature, and by optimizing your forms to use browsers like Chrome (or by adding microcopy that indicates that this feature is available) you can help users move through your form effortlessly.

Use a clean, condensed, and easy-to-read design. Not only does a clean design save layout space, it saves the user time and effort jumping or scrolling around the page. Having a simple, clean form also prevents form fields from being missed, and gives the user less work for the same results.

Make sure the user has a quick escape option. No one likes being forced to fill in a form, so if you’re using pop-up forms, make sure you include a big ‘X’ in the corner or a noticeable “No Thanks” button at the bottom.

Make the form as short as possible. Only capture the information you absolutely need to use. You can always follow up in an email notification asking for additional concerns or questions.

Change your form types to help lazy users. Try using radio buttons instead of form fields to create a “one-click” form submission experience for passive users. The less work the person filling in the form has to do, the more likely they are to do it.

A/B test for the best results

Of course, the best way to ensure that your forms are optimized for user experience is to test them regularly. Like Joshua Porter realized during his microcopy experiment, sometimes updating and testing the smallest parts of your form can have huge impacts on conversions.

A/B testing, sometimes called split testing, will help you compare and contrast which versions of your forms and landing pages are producing more conversions.

Testing things like form placement (above the fold or after the fold?), form labels (do your form fields go next to instructions or below them?), personalized microcopy and call-to-action buttons (should you say “Sign Up” or “Join”?), and even testing your design and color schemes can help clarify areas of your form that slow users down or prevent people from filling them in.

While there are no set rules when it comes to making your forms more appealing, by having great content, clean design, personalized microcopy, and frequent testing, you can ensure the best user experience possible and turn interested site visitors into actual customers.

Contact forms are the bread and butter of any business’ website. They’re how you gather new leads, convert prospects into real customers, and support your existing ones. They should be one of the places you focus on most when designing your website: A/B testing different solutions, getting creative with layouts, and optimizing conversion rate.

Unfortunately, most contact forms are the last priority when designing a website. They not only end up looking rushed or out of place within the context of the site’s design, but identical to every other site. The contact form is the end of the user’s journey through your website, and should be one of the key areas that differentiates you from your competition. It can be a real waste when your website uses beautiful fonts, colors and graphics like this:And then your contact form looks like this:

It can be difficult to come up with ways to get creative with your contact form. Most contact forms only need three pieces of information: the user’s name, a way to contact them, and a short message. The easiest way to do that is by simply using three text fields and a submit button. But getting creative with your contact form can improve the quality of your leads, increase your conversion rate, and bolster your brand’s reputation for good design.

Provide Options

The default contact form is great, but not always the most suitable. They’re not great for receiving immediate help, or for complicated requests. By providing different options at this point, users can pick what suits them best. Here,Chargebee offers not only the default contact form, but also a call back request. Placing links to the company’s social networks here would also be a good idea (Twitter and Facebook are great ways for getting in touch with a company).

Fit the Design

A beautifully-designed website will impress visitors and sell your business. But since your website is essentially a path leading towards your contact form, having this final point in the journey be comparatively disappointing will tell visitors that you don’t pay attention to details. If you can’t get such an important aspect of your own site right, how can they entrust you with their site?

You don’t have to go to extreme lengths to create an entirely new contact experience – simply taking the time to design the form around the rest of your site is a great first step.Saus, a creative communications studio, has styled their contact form based on a physical postcard. At its base, it’s still just a couple of text input fields and a submit button, but it fits perfectly into the context of the website.

Give Context

One way to improve Saus’ form would be to give the user some expectation of when they might receive an answer. If they call immediately, will there be someone to answer? If they email, will it be minutes, hours or days until they receive a response?Huge does this well by appending the current time to each of their offices. Now the user can tell whether or not it’s currently business hours, and can get a rough estimation of how long a response might take. If it’s currently 2 AM, you won’t be getting a response until later in the morning. But if it’s 2 PM, you can probably expect one within the hour.

Give a Head Start

One big discouraging influence in many contact forms is the blank text field. Name and email address are no problem – the user already knows those, it’s just a matter of being willing to share the information. But a big blank text field saying “Message” is daunting. The user needs to figure out exactly what needs to be shared, and worry about what they might have forgotten to include. A great solution to this problem is a mad-libs style contact form, like the one below fromAndrew Haglund.

Eliminate The Blank Page

Even if you don’t want to go full mad-libs style, there are still ways to avoid the blank page syndrome. Prime users with multiple choice questions, then use placeholder text to further guide their answers.

Break It Up

Some contact forms won’t fit into the simple name-email-message structure, and will need to request a bit more information from the user. Placing a lot of text fields on screen at once is a sure way to scare users off, especially those with limited time. By breaking up long contact forms into sections, the form appears smaller and gives the illusion of taking a shorter time to fill out. Creative Digital AgencyHarbr breaks their contact form into three steps. The final step is still a freeform text input field, but by this point the main questions have been answered, and this field is more of a support, rather than the critical piece.

Get Graphical

Most form elements are pretty boring by default.Typeform spices up their designs by using simple illustrations instead of radio buttons. The illustrations remove the reliance on detailed copy, and allow users to skim the form. The less reading involved in your form, the faster users can fill it out, and the higher your conversion rate will be.

Be Analytical

Whenever you’re making changes to your contact forms, make sure you track and analyze how the form performs before and after. If the changes you make reduce interaction rates, that’s not necessarily a bad thing! You might be reducing the rate of users asking questions that your website already answers. Keep track of how many useful conversions you get, and use the data to guide your design decisions.

A huge part of the success or failure of an online business depends on its forms and their ability to convert viewers into paying customers. Contact forms must gather essential information on leads, and checkout forms must endear enough trust for users to hand over their credit card details.

Designing forms is an art. There are many subtle elements: your forms must be brief yet exhaustive, noticeable yet non-intrusive, unambiguous yet not trivial, minimal yet interesting. Web forms should be about the user experience above all else – but they must also provide you with the data you need to run your business.

Luckily, there’s a lot of simple things you can do to increase your conversion rates without sacrificing data quality.

Reduce form length

Many companies have massively increased conversion rates by just removing a few unnecessary fields from their form.Expedia, for example, eliminated one field (company name), and gained $12 million/year in profit. Imaginary Landscape compacted their form from 11 fields down to 4 and found a 120% increase in conversions. Even better – the field they removed had no real impact on the quality of leads generated.

Don’t ask for phone numbers

Almost every contact form involves asking for an email address, but some forms ask for a phone number as well. Including a phone number field decreases your conversion rates by about 5%. For businesses that rely on post-click sales calls, this may be a worthy trade. But for most, it’s better to leave it out, or at least make it optional. In one study byLuke Wroblewski, making a phone field optional led to a 37% drop-off on the phone number field entries, but doubled the conversion rate of the whole form.

Show the password

By default, any password field in a form masks all the characters with asterisks. But likeReset buttons on forms, this seems to be one of those 20-year-old decisions that have become “just the way things are done”. Password masking then led to people making mistakes when entering their password and not being able to log in, which created the “Confirm Password” field that everyone loves.

But if we just take a step back and reconsider whether that 20-year-old design decision is still serving us well, maybe we can remove another form field! Many companies like MailChimp and Amazon are now presenting a single password field, along with a checkbox to show the password as plain text. In one A/B test, Formisimo found that replacing the Confirm Password field with a Show Password checkbox increased conversions by 56% and decreased the number of corrections made (from mis-typing or second-guessing) by 24%. Interestingly though, it had no effect on the password reset request rate.

Use the right inputs

When you’re deciding which form fields to keep and which to throw out, keep in mind that not all fields are equal. The cost of keeping or adding a field depends on what type of field you’re adding. One extra text input field won’t do much to your conversion rates – just a $12 million/year loss . Adding one text box can drop your rates by almost 10%. It makes sense: most single-line text input fields don’t involve any creativity or decision-making. It doesn’t require effort for a user to recall their name or email address. A radio button is slightly more difficult, but at least all the possible answers are pre-defined. But a text area means that the user has to get creative and come up with a response on the spot – usually a complex message or comment. If you must include a text box, think about marking it optional.

Dropdown boxes aren’t as bad as text boxes, but they’re still significantly worse than single-line input fields. If your dropdown box only has a few options (5 or less), try replacing it with radio buttons. Radio buttons are faster to interact with because they allow the user to see the answers before they click on the input.

Real Time Validation

If you’re only validating upon form submission (or worse, not at all), you’re missing out on a really easy conversion rate boost. Luke Wroblewskiran a few studies and found that real-time validation increased conversion rates by 22%, decreased errors by 22% and decreased completion time by 42%.

Focus on your Call to Action

Ok, so now you’ve optimized the hell out of your form fields. What else can we do to increase conversion rates? Let’s look at the Call to Action (CTA). Minor changes to your CTA can make a surprisingly big difference on conversion rates.

The first thing to look at is the color and position of the CTA. You may have heard ofHubSpot’s study – they ran an A/B test on one of their client’s websites, and simply changing the CTA’s color from green to red improved conversion rates by 21%. So does this mean that you should immediately go out and change all your green buttons to red? Not necessarily. Take a look at the website HubSpot was testing:

The logo is green, the icons are green, the screenshot is green – so of course the red button stands out a lot more than the green button. Take a look at the following design – which of these buttons do you think will convert better?

So the lesson to take out of this is not “make all your CTA buttons red”, but “make sure your CTA buttons contrast well against the rest of your site”.

Once that’s handled, take a look at your CTA copy. It may seem that as long as it’s clear which button is the “Submit” button, and it says something like “Submit,” you can’t go wrong. In fact, Dan Zarellafound that “Submit” is one of the worst words to use for your CTA. Take a look at the graph below: “Click Here” performed almost twice as well as “Submit,” and more than three times better than “Register.”

But don’t go rushing off to change your CTA buttons to “Click Here” just yet – think about how to best apply this to your design. Optimizelyincreased their conversion rates 27% by changing their CTA text from “Get Started” to “Test It Out.” They concluded that “this language made it more clear that the user could try it immediately without a long process. We thought “Get Started” presented a more hands-on, involved process.” Taking another look at the above graph, this makes sense. “Click Here” involves absolutely no commitment – it’s purely a directive. “Register” on the other hand, sounds like going to the DMV and spending three hours in line.

A/B Testing

Before you make any modifications to your forms, use an A/B testing setup to compare your conversion rates before and after. Maybe you’ll be able to add in a new input field without sacrificing conversion rates. Perhaps you’ll finally get an objective answer on what text to place in your CTA button. With time, iteration and solid data, you’ll be able to increase form conversion rates and boost your client base.